


Old Habits

by hubblegleeflower



Series: Favourite Ficlets [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Communication, Established Relationship, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, M/M, Touch, touch starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 18:16:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6968545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hubblegleeflower/pseuds/hubblegleeflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Sherlock both have a complicated history with respect to touch, but some things are simpler than they appear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Habits

**Author's Note:**

> First posted on Tumblr.

John is not accustomed to being touched, or to touching.

He has not been fondled or petted since he was very small, and even then, his family was never particularly demonstrative, even during the good times.

He learned, early, to tuck his affection away, neatly. To keep it to himself. Not to trouble anyone with it. (That became his approach with his whole self.)

His relationships, when he had them, were lukewarm for the most part. Sometimes his girlfriends would touch him spontaneously, not for sex, and he liked that. It was lovely, actually. That someone regarded him kindly enough to make that contact, a squeeze or a caress for no purpose other than to communicate affection. It was… _nice._ And novel, no matter how often it happened. Not in his lexicon. He rarely thought to reciprocate.

When it was for sex, it was a conscious decision on his part to initiate and, in due course, to escalate, and while he took great care afterwards to provide the requisite cuddling and affirmation – and enjoyed it – it was always a relief when it was over, to know he’d conducted himself creditably.

With Mary, all touch was a power play. He realises now that she laid hands on him as a way of claiming, of controlling. Even the most casual of contact was fraught with underlying meaning that he mainly didn’t grasp in its entirety but which he was still uneasily aware of. Sex was a complex series of negotiations that he would have been happy to avoid, would almost have not noticed how long they went without, but Mary took pains to ensure it happened regularly and apparently spontaneously.

He was just conscious enough that something was amiss to be put off by this, but not enough to actually refuse. That would have seemed…uncivil, somehow. And he would not have been able to justify it, in any case.

When he discovered everything he hadn’t known about Mary, he felt all at once like her handprints were on his body, from every time she’d ever touched him, marking him. It was a long time before he allowed that someone – Sherlock – might be able to rub them away, those marks, or overwrite them.

Suffice it to say that John’s relationship with physical contact has not been unproblematic for some time.

***

Sherlock also has a difficult relationship with touch.

As a child, he flung himself at the people he cared about with the same unflinching abandon with which he flung himself at anything that captured his attention, with his whole self and his whole heart.

Risking both, each time, until – inevitably – both were battered and compromised.

He has never been adept at reading social cues for when he is _too much_ in some way (too clever, too eager, too odd, too passionate) and gave up trying long ago. Instead, as an adult, he has tended either to ignore or to exploit people’s arbitrary social boundaries, to his own ends. He has no qualms here whatsoever.

Physical boundaries, though, and the limits people set on how their bodies should be touched, these are a different story. For reasons of his own, Sherlock long ago determined that it is better to avoid all physical contact rather than risk inadvertently bestowing a touch that might turn out to be unwanted.

Eventually he reached the conclusion that most kinds of touch, if bestowed by him, would be unwanted anyway. 

He does without. He’s good at that.

It has not escaped him that John welcomes his touch. He has worn out welcomes before, though. He never wants to find out how far his welcome runs with John.

***

With each other, it is different. Everything is different. But one does not easily overcome a lifetime of reticence. Of isolation.

***

Tonight John is deflated. It happens sometimes. He gets tired or run down, or dwells on something disturbing or dark or deeply regretted. (He has his pick of these.) He would take it very well tonight if Sherlock were to look kindly enough upon him to give him a squeeze or a caress that is not required, that is purely affectionate, that is for no purpose.

John doesn’t know how to ask, though. Sometimes he doesn’t even quite know he wants it. But tonight he knows. His skin feels stretched, a little, tighter than it should be, in his chest and, oddly, around his fingernails.

He’s sure it must be visible to Sherlock, this yearning. He feels it like a fog around his body, making all his edges blurry. It is almost tangible; of course Sherlock can see it.

Sherlock would reach for John if he wanted to. Sherlock is not reaching for John. Therefore he doesn’t want to. Logic.

John oscillates between reading distractedly and blogging badly, and finally goes to bed early. He does not announce his departure. He lies in bed with his aching skin, and his fingernails hurt where they brush against the sheet.

***

Sherlock loves John with his whole heart and his whole self. There is not a moment in the day when he does not wish to fling himself at John, to pet him or caress him, to squeeze his shoulder or snuffle through his hair. He wants it with the same abandon he felt as a child, as if years upon years worth of lessons have taught him nothing at all.

But they have. He knows. John loves him, of course, but other people do not do things with the wildness that Sherlock does. Other people – even John – don’t feel things that way. He has learned, his lessons have been comprehensive on this point, how to hold himself apart. How to stave off rejection by not offering.

He puts his lessons to good use with John, and he is glad at how thoroughly he has learned them. If he were to fling himself at John and be – not rejected, John would be scrupulously  kind about it – rebuffed, however gently, he does not think he could bear it.

But some nights it is difficult, even though he can see that John is sagging, is drained, does not have any extra energy to deal with Sherlock’s pawings. He still feels it under his whole skin, the urge to fondle and pat and stroke. The sheer affection that threatens to crackle out of his pores.

Tonight, Sherlock is alight with it. He’s sure to overstep.

He is relieved when John quietly gets up and goes to bed. He’s not sure how long he could have held back, in spite of everything.

***

 _This is stupid,_ John decides, and levers himself up from the bed. If he wants a goddamn cuddle, he should bloody well ask for one. Time for Sherlock to earn his boyfriend status, whether it’s a pain in the arse for him or not.

***

 _This is stupid,_ Sherlock decides, and heaves himself out of his chair. One little goodnight kiss is not going to frighten John away. He probably won’t even wake up.

***

They meet in the corridor.

One of them says, “I just – ”

“Could you just…?” The other, talking over him.

“You want…?” They both want.

“Yeah, I – yeah.” They both do.

***

Later, in the bed, where they haven’t had sex but have touched and stroked and kissed and _snuggled_ , and Sherlock has defused and diffused the energy under his skin, discharged it onto John’s face and through his hair, and John’s skin is fitting properly again, and the fog is gone, and John is not overwhelmed or put off by Sherlock’s effusiveness, and Sherlock is not irked by John’s need (need, proper _need_ , and not _neediness_ , despite his own stern blandishments to himself in the dark), and they are both still and satisfied and _connected,_ they laugh at one another, and themselves.

“Why didn’t you,” one of them asks. Maybe it is Sherlock.  “Why didn’t you say? If you wanted.”

The other – maybe John? – doesn’t know. He really doesn’t, anymore. Instead, he asks, “Well, why didn’t you?”

A shrug, quite an expressive one. Probably Sherlock. “I forget sometimes.”

“Yeah? I guess I do too.”

At that, a curious look. “You do? What do you forget?”

“That I’m really not alone anymore.” Who? It could be either one of them.

“That’s it,” the other says softly. “That’s it exactly.”

With each other, it is different. Everything is different. They’ll realise it, by and by.


End file.
